Homeschooling yesterday, Thursday 4/30/09;

Trying to get Tommie motivated yesterday, was like pulling a cement block around. Sure wonder what that's like to have a kid up and ready and cheerfully honker down to begin math? I decided I need to make decimal flashcards... reading decimals is not coming easy. He needs a little boost.

We're just about done with the swan unit. Again, yesterday... I used it for dictation, spelling words and reading comp.

He worked on one page of his President's book...and homemade reading comp. questions. He's on Grover Cleveland or Harrison...I can't remember which. He practiced reciting the President's in order... I made a cheesy little card game up to help him retain it... hand's on.

After lunch:

Silent Reading, The Living Mountain.

Science: a small unit on soy beans and what they are used for... soy bean diesel, soy bean everything, literally! Also, used the microscope to view: strawberries, celery and my favorite.. a tomato! Reviewed the slides of our dead June bug. (pictured above).

Did a quick little art study on Salvidor Dali. I am hoping to teach an art class for our homeschool co-op in the Fall and I'm experimenting before hand... Salvidor was from Spain, he was a sculptor, jewelry designer and dabbled in film making... he also did art work like above- called the impossible! Using pictures of people or stuff and creating them into the impossible. We used oil pastels, like he did. Tommie did a piece on Jon and Kate plus Eight's kids... an underwater theme with an octopus and their kids faces as fish... the emphasis being on the word "oct" and I did the other one.

I love this twisted thinking.